Like a lot of guys their age, brothers Clifford and Cliffton Putman regularly get on Facebook to stay in touch with friends, flirt with women and publish thoughts on life.

Oklahoma inmate De'Ontel Harris, squatting, posted this photo in March 2012 to his Facebook page. He refers to himself as "De'Ontel Savagedagreat Harris." Harris, 22, was convicted in 2009 of shooting with intent to kill. He is serving a 10-year sentence at the Davis Correctional Facility in Holdenville. Facebook - Facebook

“U like gangstas?” Clifford Putman, 26, wrote one woman in May who commented on his profile picture.

Both brothers are convicted murderers, serving lengthy prison terms at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for a fatal shooting. There, and across the state's prison system, it is against the rules to access social media sites.

An investigation by The Oklahoman found dozens of male state inmates have used smuggled cellphones to access Facebook from behind bars. The inmates blatantly post online personal photos taken with cellphone cameras. Many strip to the waist to show off tattoos. Some flash gang signs.

Some have made hundreds of online “friends,” mostly women. With their cellphones, inmates can access these friends' own Facebook pages. One of Cliffton Putman's recently added friends is a Miami, OK, strip club manager. Her Facebook page features dirty jokes and photos of the club's half-naked dancers on stripper poles.

Some inmates get caught — one when he sent a “friend” request to a corrections officer's Facebook page, prison records show.

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Other inmates are getting away with Facebook use, the newspaper's investigation found.

One inmate posted comments as recently as Saturday.

While seemingly innocuous, inmates on Facebook are the most visible examples of a growing problem that corrections officials have been powerless to stop.

How do they get access?

Cellphones are regularly being smuggled into the state's correctional facilities, allowing murderers, rapists, thieves and other criminals a direct and unmonitored connection to the outside world. Hundreds of contraband cellphones are seized each year.

Since Jan. 1, 2012, guards have caught inmates with cellphones or found evidence of illegal cellphone use more than 3,000 times, records show.

Two hundred of those inmates were murderers, the records show.

Inmates have used contraband cellphones to access pornography, operate drug rings, make threats and contact relatives and friends, prison and court records show.

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Last year, a thief was suspected of using a cellphone to extort money from another inmate's mother, the records show.

One inmate was suspected of using a cellphone in 2006 to order a “hit” on his own brother for being a snitch, court records show. The inmate was never charged in his brother's 2006 fatal shooting because of insufficient evidence.

One female inmate was caught in a prison shower making a cellphone video of another female inmate who was naked and speaking baby talk, the records show.

Often, a caught inmate would break the cellphone or flush it down a toilet, the records show.

Guards and inmates' relatives smuggle in many of the cellphones, officials say, but organized groups have become part of the growing problem. Sometimes, getting a cellphone inside a prison is as simple as throwing it over the fence.

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